August 2003: Jimmy Shine and I have a personal goal of driving the Thacker and Shine A-V8 Roadster to Bonneville and going 200 mph. We're partway there. As HOT ROD reported in the December '02 issue, we had managed to run 182 mph in August of that year with one of Bill Mitchell's World Products small-blocks. The following year we bumped it up to 192 with a John Beck-built Mert Littlefield 8-71-blown small-block, but Jimmy was going backward through the lights so that kind of didn't count. Subsequent transmission problems put the car on the trailer and killed the chance at another run.
Thacker and Shine are not known as the most technical of teams, instead relying on brute force and ignorance to go fast. So, there we were on the Salt, trying to figure out what to do next, when McLaren F1 designer Peter Stevens, who was there with the MG team, said, "Well, the scoop is probably doing you more harm than good. It would at least be better facing the other way." Jimmy's response was, "Well, it looks cool." I asked if he wanted to look cool or go fast. "Both!" he said.
Peter went on to observe that there were maybe 10 areas in which we could improve the aerodynamics of what is, after all, nothing more than a flat-black brick. To a budget racer, free horsepower is the best kind of all. Peter continued: "The headlights are definitely not helping. The tonneau cover and the windshield could probably be shaped better." The list grew and the creative juices flowed.
Fast forward to August 2004: John Beck freshened up the motor, the car got a new transmission, and it went 201.821 mph. Goal achieved, sort of. My wife, bless her, asked if we'd set a record. I said no. "Well then, you haven't finished yet, have you?"
Knowing she was right and wondering how we could get Jimmy that $14 red hat, I concocted a plan to take the roadster to England (where I'm from), put it in the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) wind tunnel, and possibly run it in the famous hillclimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Why go to England? At the time, there was no easy access to a tunnel in the U.S. Most were either owned by the OEMs or government contractors such as Lockheed, and AeroDyn's tunnel in North Carolina wasn't finished. So, off we went to England with the help of California Shipping (Stanton, California) and Kingstown Shipping (Hull, England). Our good friend Paul at Duksville Speed Shop arranged to pick up the car and deliver it to The Dove Company in Norfolk. Owned by Colin Jones, The Dove Company is one of those little-known shops tucked into the back of an anonymous industrial park where the OEMs go to have their concept cars built. It's a favorite resource of Peter Stevens. Peter, who was responsible for much of the design of the McLaren F1 road car, has been involved in aero design for more than 20 years and is currently working with the Williams Formula One team. That's a pretty decent rsum.
Foamcore And TapeYou would expect the preparation for the wind-tunnel exercise to be scientific, but instead we spent two days cutting bits of foamcore and wood and taping them to the car. It was like a kindergarten project, only fullsize.
We began with wheel discs for the insides of the front wheels, progressed to the tonneau and screen-which demanded a lot of attention because SCTA rules require the stock Model B "eyebrow" and lower windshield posts to be retained, and Peter felt it was one of the more significant areas-and moved on to the hoodscoop, the headlights, and a cardboard and wood mock-up of a Moon tank. The SCTA rule book is very specific about front-mounted tanks, so we felt that there must be some aerodynamic advantage to be had by installing one-as long as it was in the right position.
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